Whumptober 2019- Numb
by Frankie McStein
Summary: It had been days since they'd been told Magnum was being assumed dead. And she still hadn't felt anything at all


Four days since he had disappeared. Three days since half the island had been turned upside down looking for a trace of him. Two days since the Ferrari had been found, full of blood. One day since the lab had confirmed it was Magnum's.

She hadn't been allowed to see the car; it was being held as evidence. She had expected to be annoyed by that, but she hadn't been. She hadn't been allowed to listen in on the interrogation of Katsumoto's only suspect; he was determined that, if it went to court, there wouldn't be the slightest chance of a technicality getting the case thrown out. She had expected to be frustrated by that, but she hadn't been. She hadn't eaten since they had been told the DNA was a match. She'd expected to feel hungry by now, but she really wasn't. She hadn't slept, not feeling tired. She hadn't cried, not feeling teary.

She had caught up on all the work she had let slide while they had been looking for him. She hadn't felt any particular urge to bring her paperwork up to date, but, once she started working on it, she had found it impossible to stop. Her head had started throbbing after the first handful of hours, but she hadn't moved. It wasn't that she wanted to keep working; it was more that she didn't know what she would do once she stopped.

Rick and T.C. had come in at one point, talking in pain-filled voices. They had tried to get her to join the conversation, but she hadn't felt like saying much. She'd thought, briefly, that she should try to add something, but it had all felt so meaningless. She'd ended up staring at the two men as they spoke, fixated by the way their jaws and lips moved as they formed the words that seemed to be spilling out of them.

Her mind hadn't been able to hold onto the emotions they were expressing, the emotions she thought she should be feeling too. She had tried to feel them, telling herself over and over that Magnum was dead. But she'd ended up feeling lightheaded rather than sad. She had repeated the numbers from the lab report, the amount of blood in the car and the amount an adult male could lose before dying, and the impossibly large difference between them. But, instead of feeling like crying, she had felt dizzy.

So she had stared at two of the most important people in the world to her. She was watching them mourn their friend, their brother. She was meant to be a part of that grief, she knew. But she just couldn't do it. The longer she stared, they looked less and less like Rick and T.C., less and less like her boys, and more like intricately formed clockwork toys, mouths moving thanks to gears and cogs.

They had left her eventually, with shuffling feet and awkward looks, as if one of their springs had snapped under the tension and the mechanism that kept them running was going awry. And she had been sitting there ever since. Her eyes were still fixed on the screen of her laptop, which, she told herself, was why she hadn't realised it had gotten dark. She had been sat, unmoving, unthinking, for so long, that the entire day had passed by without her.

Her mind travelled back to the days following Richard's death. It dug up the memories she usually tried not to dwell on. Every minute had felt like an entire day, like the weight of her pain had been too much for the universe to carry. Like time itself had been forced to slow down to accommodate it. But this first day since being told she had lost Magnum had passed in little more than the blink of an eye.

This was fine, she decided. The world would carry on at its usual pace, the clocks would keep ticking at the regular speed, and all she would have to do was… She wasn't sure what she had to do. She wasn't sure what she wanted to do. She didn't think she wanted to do anything. Somewhere in her mind was a small voice, trying to tell her that this wasn't good. But she ignored it easily enough. This was better than falling to the floor and not getting up for the better part of two days. This was better than letting her emotions control her. This was better than feeling the gut-wrenching agony.

She didn't feel anything. No pain. No worry about the lack of pain. She wasn't feeling, she just was.

…

The people around her were worried, she knew. They seemed to be taking pains not to leave her alone. She had come downstairs, after a mostly sleepless night spent, not tossing and turning, but simply lying still on her bed, and found T.C. making coffee. She hadn't drank any, even though he had offered three times. She had tried to answer him once, to act like she knew she was meant to be acting. But she didn't think she had managed it.

She'd blinked, and he had somehow gone from the other side of the kitchen to right beside her. His hand had been reaching out for her shoulder, and she had flinched violently, startled by how close he had gotten without her noticing. The first thing she had felt since being told Magnum was dead, and it was fear of a man who she knew she never needed to be afraid of.

She had seen pain on his face as she had jerked away from him, but she hadn't felt that pain herself. She had hurt him by being scared, but there was no reaction inside of her to that thought. She hadn't tried to apologise or explain. Her eyes had fixed themselves on his for a while, as if unable to move. And then she had simply stood and walked away.

Rick had shown up next. She had gone down to the beach with the lads. They weren't tearing around the way they usually would, instead lying next to her, heads on their paws, whining quietly. They'd hardly even moved when Rick had come walking up. He had sat down next to her, mimicking her pose and posture. He had fixed his eyes on the horizon, same as hers. But she felt like he was actually seeing it, seeing the clouds and the sun, the brilliant blue. She felt as though she was looking at a flat display. That the world in front of her was a poorly drawn projection.

Rick had started talking. She knew she was meant to be listening to the words, sure that whatever he was saying was important, even if it was only important to him. But the noises, the sounds of the words as they left his lips, seemed to just float away before they could reach her.

The longer she sat there, the longer she stayed still, the more she felt like she was floating too. She thought maybe she would bump into the words Rick was saying. Maybe she was floating off to wherever they had gone. Maybe, if she could hear them, she would be able to understand what he was feeling. And maybe, if she could work out the feelings that were going on around her, she would feel something.

But the words stayed out of her reach. Or maybe she was never floating to the same place. She wasn't sure. All of a sudden she was back on the beach, Zeus pawing at her leg. Rick was gone, and he had taken the echo of his words with him.

She realised with a jolt the sun had set. Again. The second day of Magnum being dead had passed without her noticing. Without her doing anything. Without her _feeling_ anything.

What had she felt when Richard had died? How had she felt? The pain, yes. There had been so much pain she'd thought for sure it would kill her. That her body simply wouldn't be able to contain it. She had woken up screaming night after night, dreaming that she had been there, that she had seen the bullets tearing into him. She hadn't been able to leave her flat for weeks, unable to predict or control the tears.

It was strange. She'd thought that losing Magnum, losing any of her boys, would have been nearly as painful. But she didn't feel pain. She didn't want to scream until her throat was on fire. She didn't want to cry until her head ached and her chest felt heavy. She didn't particularly care if she did anything or nothing.

…

Three days since Katsumoto had walked in with the most serious expression she had ever seen him wear. Three days since she had been told that HPD were looking for a body. Three days and she still didn't feel like she was feeling anything.

She wondered if it was a protective instinct. If her mind and body, still scarred from the loss of Richard, were shutting down her emotions deliberately. A defense mechanism, something she could hide behind, like the attitude she had used as a barrier before Magnum had broken into the estate.

Maybe this lack of emotion was the only thing keeping her sane. Maybe it was better for her if she spent the rest of her days in this odd haze. Maybe it was better for the people around her if they didn't need to waste their time comforting her when they needed comfort themselves.

If she were being honest, she didn't really care. She didn't care if it was good or bad. She didn't care if she was reacting well or poorly. She didn't care that she had lost track of entire chunks of the previous two days. She didn't care that she couldn't focus on anything around her.

She felt removed from everything that was going on. It was like it was all taking place on a stage set out before her, and she was somehow in both the starring role and a seat in the audience. She could _see_ herself. She could sit back and watch as her own body went about essential daily tasks without any actual input from her.

It was a relief, in a way. If her body could carry on without her, then she didn't need to worry about paying attention. She could lose hour after hour, sitting stock-still and silent. She could let the people around her come and go as they pleased, let their words mingle and merge into meaningless tones and sounds. She could let the world carry on simply slipping away.

So when she walked into the living area to see it full of people, Rick and T.C. standing by the coffee table, Kumu and Katsumoto sitting on the couch, she didn't think anything of it. When she heard a voice saying something about being held prisoner, her mind didn't bother to process the words.

And when she took one more step into the room and saw Magnum standing by the chair, her brain simply stopped everything.

"He wanted you all to think I was dead, so he spent two days sticking me with needles, collecting the blood in jars and bottles." Magnum looked tired, oddly pale, but alive. So alive. "He laughed when he told me he had poured it all over the Ferrari."

Higgins' eyes tracked the movement of his hand as he ran it across his eyes, exhaustion showing in the gesture. It was the first thing she had paid any attention to since being told Magnum was presumed dead.

There was a pressure building in her head, in her chest, gathering at the base of her spine. Her breathing was picking up speed as the world shifted around her as she stood still. The pain that she hadn't felt was there, sitting in her stomach. But she was looking at him, alive and well, and the relief was making her heart race and jump.

For the first time in three days, she was aware of her own body, of the tightness in her throat and the burning in her eyes and the weakness in her legs. She forced herself to take another step forward, feeling every ounce of effort the movement demanded from her.

Five pairs of eyes turned to stare at her. Five pairs of lips opened to spill words out at her, but she wasn't ready for a wall of sound.

"You're alive?" They were the first words she had spoken in days. Her voice was a surprise to her, quiet and strained as it was.

In front of her, Magnum pulled his lips into a half smile, a huff of laughter twitching his shoulders as he gave the tiniest shake of his head. "Sorry to disappoint you."

The first words she had heard him say for days. The first words she had listened to for days. And they were nonsense.

"I'm sure you were happily planning on clearing my stuff out of the guest house." Magnum grinned as he said it and had a second or two to wonder why everyone around him was suddenly glaring at him. And then arms were wrapping around his neck and Higgins was pressed so tightly against him that he could feel her entire body trembling, feel her chest heaving as she fought to breathe, feel her shoulders shaking as she tried not to cry.

Oh.

His arms wrapped themselves around her almost instinctively, without any thought from him. One around her waist, returning the hug, holding her as tightly as she was holding him. The other on her back, rubbing small circles over her spine.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, not really caring if the others heard, just not wanting to overwhelm her with noise when she was already so overwrought. "I'm so sorry I scared you."

Even with her face pressed against his chest, everyone in the room heard the first sob as it tore out of her. Magnum wasn't surprised to feel two sets of arms joining the embrace, to feel two bodies push up against him and Higgins.

He was still dizzy, probably, almost definitely, in need of a blood transfusion. He was bruised in places, including his ego. He wanted to sleep for a week, take a shower, then sleep for a few more days. But, whatever else he had been through, he hadn't thought he had lost someone. He had known all the people he cared about were alive and safe.

He'd get to the hospital eventually, he decided, still muttering gentle reassurances. This was more important.


End file.
